The effort seeks to engage 18- to 25-year-old music lovers via social media, contests and quirky video ads.

German audio company Sennheiser, with help from agency McKinney, is out with a new campaign called “Let Your Ears Be Loved” to promote the brand’s new Urbanite headphones. There are two socially-fueled elements to the campaign.

First, online, the campaign is anchored on a landing page where four ads and five shorts feature a strange German accented character and a huge ear created by Legacy Effects, the same company that created the Iron Man suit for the last two feature films.

Our German accented host aims to please the giant, life-like ear by delivering all forms of aural pleasure — physically and verbally, and, well, kind of strangely — in an effort to convince viewers that he, a stand in for the Urbanite headphones, will love everyone else’s ears just as much.

Offline, the campaign will feature an “ear hunt.” But the offline campaign depends upon the online component. Last week, the brand began placing 1,000 Golden Ears in and around New York City on 11′ X 17″ posters in record stores, restaurants and other locations frequented by the campaign’s intended audience, 18-25 year olds.

Each poster has a removable ear that can be redeemed for a pair of Urbanite headphone at the Ear Love Palace, a pop-up experience the brand has created at 1 Rivington Street on the Lower East Side of Manhattan. But — and this is how the online connects with the offline — to get clues as to the location of these posters, people have to share the videos on the landing page out to their social networks on Facebook, Twitter or Tumblr with the hashtag #EarLove.

Except, of course, one doesn’t actually have to share the video to get the clue. Users can simply click the share button which brings up the share window and then just close it before actually sharing. They will then be presented with their clue.

Additionally, people can take an “ear selfie” and post it to Instagram tagged with @sennheiserurbanite and #EarLove to have a chance to win, as well.

The campaign, itself, is getting promotion with banner placement on music site Fadar as well as editorial and social posts on various Fadar properties. Additional native ad placements and video ads across other sites tout the campaign as well.

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